One of the problems I see with Klan Vanilla is the fact you can waste a certain number of visits on certain forums (GFoC and Faux News, I’m looking at you two!) and they never get taken in a period of 2 hours, hell, even 1 day. I don’t think that happens with any EP1 forums. Now at 2:30am server time, Fitness fabulous personry is the EP1 forum that hasn’t been taken for the most time (40 minutes), while GFoC and Faux are at 9 hours without being taken.

You don’t have to waste more than 4~5 visits to recap your Klan at 12 forums for the entire time of a 2 hours raid, nowadays. Maybe with EP1 forums being the only targets, that would at least diminish the number of scoops you get on a single raid just because of the number of visits you waste.

I think we could make 2 types of raiding, one with Vanilla scoops and EP1 forums, and other with a new scoop flavor and Forumbuildr forums, a special kind of scoop (or maybe make 24 Buildr forums be the cap? I’m open to suggestions) 36 forums would be truly an achievement.

I know my ideas are looking bad, I’m tired to think that I’l travel in a few hours. (scully, that’s the main reason I’m not competing this week Log in to see images! Fran edited this message on 07/22/2008 2:40AM

MC Banhammer Posted:

The 12 needed were set when Domination was first introduced, and there were only 12 forums available. It’s always been my opinion that the number should continue to increase to equal all the available forums.

But maybe that’s just me.

Update. Three of us took all 42 forums last night, and while it is doable it took an hour and 15 minutes to get to 42 forums. That would be an awfully large lead in time.

That is true, of course would depend on how many mean forums like GFoC and Faux are in the list. A group of 10 or more with some alts could pretty easily get the set up done in 20 – 25 minutes as long as they had a couple of DML trolls in the mix.

scullyangel Posted:

klan vanilla should not be inaccessible to solo players or very small klans.

Shouldn’t it?

If the rewards from solo vanilla are good enough, then isn’t it reasonable that a solo player can’t use his alts to buy free vanilla and that a clan of two or three people won’t be able to raid as successfully as a 10-man crew?

I wonder what would happen to raids if the number of forums needed was raised from 12 to 20.

Grayson81 Posted:

Shouldn’t it?

If the rewards from solo vanilla are good enough, then isn’t it reasonable that a solo player can’t use his alts to buy free vanilla and that a clan of two or three people won’t be able to raid as successfully as a 10-man crew?

I wonder what would happen to raids if the number of forums needed was raised from 12 to 20.

You say that as though larger klans raiding don’t use alts to buy additional vanilla. You have just joined BF, but they regularly use alts to achieve more scoops during raids, they just don’t rely as heavily on alts due to their larger player base.

Solo vanilla compared to klan vanilla is very decently balanced. The fact that klan players can earn all their klan vanilla without using a visit is a problem. The fact that klan or solo players can manipulate alts into the same brackets together is a problem. Both of these things push things out of balance on a large scale. What “should be” and what sounds good on paper, is often very different in practice.

What would happen if the number was raised? It would take 5 more minutes at the start of an organized raid to get going. It would become very difficult for a small group to interrupt a large group, but very easy for a large group to interrupt a small group. It would eliminate the free scoops currently being earned by 24 hour non-raiding in the largest klans.

scullyangel Posted:

You say that as though larger klans raiding don’t use alts to buy additional vanilla. You have just joined BF, but they regularly use alts to achieve more scoops during raids, they just don’t rely as heavily on alts due to their larger player base.

Solo vanilla compared to klan vanilla is very decently balanced. The fact that klan players can earn all their klan vanilla without using a visit is a problem. The fact that klan or solo players can manipulate alts into the same brackets together is a problem. Both of these things push things out of balance on a large scale. What “should be” and what sounds good on paper, is often very different in practice.

What would happen if the number was raised? It would take 5 more minutes at the start of an organized raid to get going. It would become very difficult for a small group to interrupt a large group, but very easy for a large group to interrupt a small group. It would eliminate the free scoops currently being earned by 24 hour non-raiding in the largest klans.

I agree with this post, the ability to earn both klan and solo vanilla/pistachio loops on a single alt definitely powers up the klan with a lot of access to alts.

You can easily net 100-200 with even a reasonably sized raid currently and if you are willing to stick to a 3 times a week schedule that means 300-600 scoops on top of whatever you primary domination alt is earning doing solo runs. Simply put you can absorb a lot more damage than your competitors. Combined with klan and alt tag team strategies and it’s very easy for unklanned or small klanned players to get utterly demolished in domination.

Increasing the number of forums needed to be held isn’t that big of an issue as there are enough episode 2 forums that hardly get repwned in a 2 hour period. Combined with the ability of the big klans to put a lot of bodies on the board this would merely make big klans that much more dominate.

Malaise Posted:

However, if I understand correctly it seems that people can gain vanilla in klan raids and by solo running in the same week. Stopping this would be a huge step towards parity in my opinion. Make ‘em choose.

You’re correct. Also I agree.

was Posted:

Is that right?

That I have never participated in a raid? Damn straight. I’ve never joined a Klan either, other than one man Klans to see the dom tab.

To get back on this (really old) topic: klan raiding is just silly at this point. Just clicking a little linkie every once in a while nets me hundreds of scoops a week on two characters: one in ED, the other in 7VD. Easily enough to medal in lower brackets and a great edge in the middle ones.

You know very well that I want to see a change for Dom, but I am happy to see Dom klans perking up again. The true solo gamer – those that will happily play a game as much and as long as a guild/clan based player – is rare. Because of that games that don’t evolve a social network that is useful to enhancing a player’s game generally need to be really expansive to hold player interest.

Perhaps no one else pays attention to how things get pbumed around, but I think you overstate how oppressive the klan situation is outside of the top 2 sometimes 3 brackets – obviously much more so in the top bracket. After all if it was all “horror horror horror!” you would have a much harder time than you do. Whether you are aware or not, I’m sure a lot of players think you are just as much if not more of a problem than BoD. *shrug* You might not be able to medal every week on every character against a big klan, but when you do push into a good position you also don’t have to deal with klan politics and the fact that some klannie is also at the tail end of their loop and expects to work with you, so that suddenly what could have been a sweep is 1 medal.

I’m not saying that validates the abuse that can happen in klan raiding, but for alt laden players rotating alts can be damn near as effective and has an impact on a lot more brackets. I guess my stance at this point is not that any specific method is the source of all problems, it is more that alts give an overwhelming advantage no matter what. We’ll find out if that is correct when the alt limit gets coded.

Btw, I don’t think it is at all the same as your drug dealer scenario. This game is a year old and still feeling it’s way. Dom is more like a drug company doing test runs on new drugs – each area a different new drug that is being tested for compatibility. It is obviously not required of every player, but I think we will end up with the best end product if those who have a certain amount of experience are willing to test it.

We are talking about a game mechanic. Maybe I get too much of the “test it yourself” from card games. I’ve heard a hell of a lot about “broken combos” and learned to take everything with a grain of salt until I’ve played it (or against it) myself. I just think it is a good thing to try the different options, it allows for a different perspective and makes it a lot easier to see where the problems are and what would work as a possible fix.

Almost every week I hear inexperienced players say that the number of scoops earned by experienced solo players is crazy and broken – I know that they just don’t get it yet. I don’t have a better example to try to explain it. I guess the thing is, if only 10 people tried solo raiding and everyone else screamed that it was broken, would it be valid to just accept the word of the people who were howling? I don’t think it should be. I just think things need to be tried and tested by those who will honestly know the difference between using every advantage and a broken mechanic. So, yeah, I think those players with the most experience and the loudest voices have a certain responsibility to know what they are talking about even if it means shooting up in their eyeballs for awhile.

At this point, I’ve raided using every method out there. Some are ridiculously ineffective, some are so highly effective as to be problematic. The same can be said for interruption. No method is a problem until it is paired with a player who can use it well or is willing to exploit an unintended loophole.

As to the gigantic “click for free scoops” klans, the only thing that will solve that is a coding change that will only allow those joined to the raid to hold forums that count.